


You Know What They Say About the Size of a Man’s Feet

by jenna_thorn



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
Genre: Gen, Jossed, Written Pre-Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-31 07:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_thorn/pseuds/jenna_thorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“<i>Shrink ray</i>, doc. He hit the tower, and I came down on it sideways, and then he zapped me.” </p><p>The doctor blinked. Clint didn’t. Avengers Initiative. Weird didn’t begin to cover it. Weird barely covered breakfast on Saturdays.</p><p> </p><p>with thanks to Beadslut for beta</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Know What They Say About the Size of a Man’s Feet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [james](https://archiveofourown.org/users/james/gifts).



Clint watched the world go by out the open door of the chopper and ignored the argument behind him. 

“This isn’t worth our time, Coulson. This guy’s not John Dillinger, and he’s sure as hell not Loki,” Tony whined.

“The FBI called us. He’s got a weapon tha—.“

Tony interrupted Phil. “I’ve got other things to do than keep a bank in Podunk, Ohio, from being robbed.”

Steve patted Tony on the shoulder. “Local law enforcement asked us for help, Tony.”

“So what?”

Steve’s voice sharpened. “Iron Man. We’ve got an assignment.”

“Oh fine, --.” The rest of his comment was lost under the faceplate as it clicked into place. 

Iron Man and Captain America tumbled out of the chopper two miles out, and Thor dropped to the ground a mile out, so there was a hell of a lot more elbow room for the last minutes of the trip. Clint amused himself with tapping out backbeats and watching Phil ignore him. As the chopper settled to just above the ground, Natasha rested her hand on his wrist. “If you earworm me with Single Ladies before an op again, I will spike your Astroglide with jalapeño juice.”

He said, as he jumped to the ground, knowing the earpieces would carry his words, “Haven’t had TexMex in a while, I mi –“

“Barton, cover. Eyes out.” Coulson snapped.

Clint dropped behind a dentist’s sign and glanced up and down the street. “Better be out. Only high around here is the teenagers.” The flag was painted on trash cans and SUVS filled every parking space. This place was Normalville, USA, and as superficial as an empty soundstage.

“Aww, do you miss your skyscrapers?” Tony mocked.

“I don’t miss. Not anything. Ever.” Clint took off for a cell phone tower behind the bank and pulled himself into position.

Stark floated to the ground in front of Phil as Clint checked his scope. With the earpiece, he could have been standing next to them as Tony looked around the parking lot. “Supervillian in the suburbs? Central Park’s not good enough for some people?

“I suspect he was trying to avoid you. I can certainly understand his motivation.”

“You love us and you know it, Coulson.” 

\---::---

Clint batted the doctor’s hand away. The huge blue latex glove poking at him from above his head just made the whole day even more unreal. 

“Our primary concern is the impaled metal. You shouldn’t have pulled it out.”

“It didn’t hit anything vital.”

“Because you can MRI yourself.” 

“Because I’m still breathing, doc. I’m bruised and banged but the _really_ important bit is that I’m toy-sized.” 

“And specialists are working now to reverse that, but I am tasked with your medical well-being and I am concerned about whatever caught you in the side.”

“Cell phone tower.” Clint bit off the ends of the words.

“Debris from a cell phone tower.”

“ _Shrink ray_ , doc. He hit the tower, and I came down on it sideways, and then he zapped me.” 

The doctor blinked. Clint didn’t. Avengers Initiative. Weird didn’t begin to cover it. Weird barely covered breakfast on Saturdays. 

“So possible concerns are standard outdoor contaminants, specifically bird nesting materials and soil.”

“It bled enough to flush out, doc. Bruising and laceration, that’s all.”

“I would still like to consider a run of antibiotics.”

“Yeah, well when you figure the correct dosage for a fucking Ken doll, you can -- .”

“Barton,” Phil said from the doorway and Clint bit his lip. 

\--::--

Fury entered the med bay with two black folders and a small silver box. Clint raised his head from his hands. Rubbing his temples wasn’t helping the headache anyway. “You’re a delivery boy now, Colonel?” 

“I came to check on you. Smartmouth me again and I’ll go away.”

“My apologies, sir.”

“Oh, sit the hell down. My day sucks but yours blows, Barton. How are you holding up?”

“Short tempered.”

“Nice to know you’ve kept your sense of humor.” 

Clint grinned as much as he could bring himself to and sat down next to the open end of the cannula blowing oxygen into the air around him.

Fury turned to the medical personnel and barked out, “Report.” Clint tuned out the resulting babble. 

\--::--

The smartphone flat on the table in front of him chimed again and Clint pressed his palm to the mute button. 

“Maybe he has something to say?” Phil suggested.

“He’s Tony Stark. He’s always talking,” Clint answered, but he keyed in his pass code, leaning across the phone to hit the six. 

“Voice mail from Stark, Anthony,” the phone said, followed by Tony’s voice muttering, “ … Besides, we still think you’re man enough for the job. Jarvis pull the - oh wait, end message. Jar…” Clint pressed three again, then one to go to the next new message. 

“The faceplate is almost big enough for Dance Dance Revolution. I could delete them all and get an aerobic workout.” In the background, Stark was saying something about shoe sizes. Clint pushed three to delete that message and one to go to the next.

Phil thumbed at his own phone, normal sized in his normal sized hand. Clint tried not to resent either as he waved one arm to distract him from making a call. “No, don’t squash him. I think he’s trying to cheer me up. They’ve mostly been along the lines of _not belittling my contributions to the team_ and _the measure of a man_ and such.”

“You think Tony Stark is trying to be kind?”

“I could say it’s big of him, but …”

The next voice mail played. “Jarvis, pull up a Barbie Dream House. I know they exist. Clint, what’s your current height? This is scaled to … what’s an 18 inch doll? No, no, that’s not right. Eleven inch … hahahaha Hey Barton, wrong nine inches! This is crap, it’s all plastic and pink. No. Restart search. Keyword GI Joe and furni--“ 

Clint leaned into the 6 button to cut off the message and reply. “Stark, do not buy me a Barbie anything, do you hear me? I do not want a house, I do not want a remote controlled car, I am not flying a model airplane. Focus, dammit and get me back to normal!” He put both hands on the end button and looked up. “If I see one box with the Amazon logo, I’m going to kill him with a cocktail sword.”

Phil pulled something grey from his jacket pocket. “That reminds me. I picked up something for you.”

“Is that…socks? I want off your Christmas list.”

“Cashmere and they’re not pink.”

“Best sleeping bag ever.”

“Just don’t try to expense a cashmere blanket when you’re full sized again.”

Clint glanced to the medical team. Nothing to see here, just a pair of steel grey socks and a shrunken sniper. “Cold canvas cot, chief. You know me.”

Phil smiled.

\--::--

Clint opened his eyes again. He could hear breathing over the hum of the air filtration system, but all his other senses were wonked. He wound his fingers in between the loops of the sock and pulled the edge down. “How long have you been there?”

“Didn’t want to wake you.”

Napping, passing out. In the medbay, the two were pretty much the same. “Thanks, I think. I reserve the right to call you Edward at the most inappropriate time I can come up with, though.”

“They’ve made some progress. They’ve determined that Pym’s research doesn’t apply. Wholly different arbitrary breaking of the so-called laws of physics.”

“So by progress you mean they’ve been researching dead ends?” Clint told the fuzzy cuff of the sock. It was the only thing not pissing him off at the moment. 

Phil tapped the table. It was the closest he’d come to touching Clint since that morning. “Elimination of incorrect paths, which narrows focus to the correct one.”

Clint asked, “You know the quote about Edison finding ten thousand ways not to build a lightbulb?”

Phil tilted his head, waiting for Clint to continue.

“Not a lot of comfort to the lightbulb.” The edges of his vision were grey again. He crawled out of the sock and pressed his phone into service. “Hunh, Stark’s running low on short jokes. Only fifteen new voice mails in the last hour.” 

“Is he including you in the actual research updates?”

“Yeah, but those are in email. I’ll delete them later. At least he’s …hey, Coulson. Look at the timestamps.”

Coulson thumbed his screen up then down. “I don’t see the pattern.”

“Not pattern, consistency. Stark’s been thinking about me for hours now. I’ve gotten more of his attention in the last day than all but maybe a handful of people on this planet. I’m in rarefied company.”

“Potts still beats you.” 

“As she should, and you know it.”

“Oh, shall we discuss redheads and hopeless crushes?”

Clint grinned. “At least I nailed mine. For a while.”

“Her report says she nailed you.”

“Semantics. I’m man enough to say I’m digging the cashmere socks. Thanks again.” He leaned forward, trying to clear his head.

“New symptom?”

“Nope, still just the oxydep. I can’t bring myself to say I’m short of breath one more time.”

“Stark and Pym are working on it.”

“I know. I know. About time he put his brain to something useful, other than making a gazillion dollars and building space suits and …” He heard the monitors scream as the white walls of the med bay faded to black.

\--::--

“ … which is why he gave up. Barton’s awake.”

The IV in his elbow tugged as Clint lifted one hand to shield his eyes. He was wearing scrubs instead of his ripped uniform. He was wearing scrubs. The crinkled waistband pulled at the gauze taped from his ribs to his hips. Sweetly familiar tape. Standard issue scrubs. “I’m human-sized again.”

“If it helps, you’re still shorter than me.”

“No, Tony, not if we’re both barefoot. You fixed it? Or does Pym get the credit for me breathing again?” Clint ran his fingertips across the cheap sheets the hospital wing always used. He hated the hospital wing, _hated it_ but right now …. He took a breath, then another.

Phil said, “We informed the suspect in custody of the potential additional charge of murder, and he handed over his notes.”

“Good for him. Do I get to shoot him anyway?” Clint asked.

“No.”

“Do I get to punch him?” Clint continued.

“Possibly.” Phil said, and stood emotionless as everyone in the room stared at him. 

Tony laughed and broke the silence. “I knew you loved us!”

“Not you, Stark, just Hawkeye and only on Thursdays. The Widow on alternate Mondays.”

“Does this mean we can’t change his name to Cherub? I’ve got preliminary costume designs --”

Steve pulled Tony physically from the room with a wave to Clint. “We wouldn’t, really, I promise.”

Clint raised one hand in goodbye to them and patted Natasha’s bicep as she leaned over to kiss him on the forehead. 

Phil stood at the foot of the bed. “Leave the IV in. You’re still dehydrated.”

“I can sleep in my own bed.”

“Tomorrow, if you behave. Don’t forget your socks.”

“I’ll wear them.” He glanced to the empty door. “I’ll even share. Possibly.”

Phil ducked his head to hide his smile as he left the room.


End file.
